Whispering Behind the Barn

Recently I had a Dexter buyer that told me they had visited several MDBA members Dexter herds and was told by them not to join the PDCA. Given current events with association politics this information doesn't surprise me any but in reading Ms. Rutherford's book and of her struggles in the past with some groups regarding coming to grips with the "bulldog" problem it reminds me of my own battles in the past with some from the MDBA that wanted to suppress my publishing the chondrodysplasia reports from overseas. It's that common refrain one hears "that it might hurt sales" from those that believe marketing and promotion should be based on misrepresentations rather than honest public conversation and breed evaluations. I still believe that old fashioned honesty and truth will in the end rise to the top like cream and the breed and breeders will be better off. Whatever those MDBA members said about the PDCA I should probably thank them for not only a Dexter sale but for also another new PDCA member. Perhaps the buyer correctly figured that he would do more to promote Dexter cattle by buying a PDCA raffle ticket than by paying a checkoff fee to the kind of promotion the MDBA supports. Those days of whispering behind the barn are gone.